


every touch is a modified blow

by haringdog



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Vague references to animal death, also serial killer genes, dream sequence adjacent, guns but only imaginary ones, some poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28095063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haringdog/pseuds/haringdog
Summary: Donna allows herself to fully smirk, and she says, “I think we have the same problem, you and I.”“Do we.” Betty’s voice is flat.“We’re quite alike,” Donna continues, as if she hadn’t heard her, “what with our penchant for…”“Dramatics?” Betty suggests.Donna huffs. “For prioritizing our ambitions, let's say."It's a more charitable way of saying that you were responsible for the deaths of two teachers. Betty lets it slide.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Donna Sweett, Betty Cooper/Veronica Lodge (referenced), past Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones - Relationship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	every touch is a modified blow

**Author's Note:**

> “Embody me.  
> Flare up like a flame  
> and make big shadows I can move in.”  
> \- Rainer Maria Rilke, Go to the Limits of Your Longing

**_Untitled document, Donna Sweett_ **

**_June 7, 2020_ **

_Last night. Woke up in the back of that red Jeep. Head slapping against the window. Doll limp and useless. Felt a body beside me. Already cold. Turned over and faced the moon. Something got swallowed wrong. Feel it in the gut. Didn’t chew enough. All mangled with the ribs. Too much stomach acid. Too much saliva. Need to spit it all somewhere. The faucet and the bathtub. The hot chocolate powder. Scraping the gunk out from underneath your fingernails. Horror movie. Too loud. Dog pawing at the door. Something under the floorboards. Tangerine light. Prayer flags like blood in the snow. Crow following. Right behind you. The sky. Too dim. Walked to the water. Checked over my shoulder. Once. Twice. A dozen times. Waited for you. You didn’t show. Piercing necks. Tracing the puncture wound. Lapping at the blood. Can’t stop licking my own wounds. Or stop putting myself in poems. Haven’t gotten over you yet. I mean the moon. Won’t ever see the other side of you. I mean myself. Perched on the windowsill. Waiting to devour. Waiting until the food is gone. Until the sun sets. Until the birds fly off. Waiting for a long time after that, too. I don’t have to tell you who it was for._

\---

You don’t remember this, but in your dreams, you see her more times than you can count. You don’t. Count, I mean. But she’s there, and maybe she wants you to notice her, but you don’t. She watches you. She says nothing. You’re too distracted by him. Him, eight feet tall and stone, back sore from the sofa, hugging you tight after you come inside from the yard all bloodshot and open mouthed. He holds you so warm you don’t even notice the rabbit foot on your doorstep. And you can’t seem to ever look him in the eye. And you can’t stop shaking. There is always an “I” in a situation, but you don’t know who it is here. It’s probably it’s some kind of self within you, him within you, or maybe you’re in him? You can’t tell because it gets kind of blurry in the intestines. You claw at the long tendons but somehow end up only scratching yourself, a harsh red mark against your stomach fat. Okay, so maybe you’re not in him, maybe you just are him. Maybe you’re the only one here. 

\---

Betty doesn’t look up as the bell over the door to Pop’s jingles with the arrival of a new customer, but maybe she should’ve, could have glanced up and been able to see some kind of looming doom through the glass pane, spotted with fingerprints. But she doesn’t, and by the time she notices her, it’s already too late. 

Donna Sweett stands with her hands clasped in front of her, pale, almost translucent skin shocking against her all black ensemble. Her sleeves are bunched up against her wrists, even though it’s nearly 90 degrees out in the dead of summer, and she’s wearing long trousers, too. It doesn’t seem like she’s even thought about sweating. 

“Cooper,” Donna greets with ease. And then, something interesting happens -- her eyes widen slightly, and her lips slip from their thin, almost horizontal line, turning down into a tight grimace before she quickly resumes her well-practiced neutrality. “I mean -- Betty.” She smiles, and it’s forced, too sugary and easy. “I thought I’d find you here.” 

Betty takes a deep breath. “Donna,” she says, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I thought we might talk,” Donna replies, and Betty almost laughs in her face, because no one ever just talks to Donna Sweett like a regular person. But then she sees that Donna’s clenching her jaw, almost setting herself up for Betty to say no, to say fuck off, and her white knuckles, and the way one thumb is brushing over the other slowly, methodically, and Betty decides to take the high road, because Donna looks kind of deadly serious right now. And then she realizes she’s quite obviously been just… looking at Donna’s hands. And Betty thinks Donna notices too, because her nose and lips twitch with familiar smugness before she’s unclasping her hands, plastering on a big grin, and sliding into the booth across from Betty. She adjusts her pants, crossing one leg over the other and bumping the table while she does so, making the coffee in Betty’s mug tilt one way and then the other, almost spilling over. 

“Please, have a seat,” Betty says, grabbing her mug to still it, and Donna looks like she’s trying not to roll her eyes. “And stop being so polite, it’s freaking me out.”

Donna just raises an eyebrow and takes two pieces of paper out of her pocket. They’re folded almost to the size of a cookie, and she slides the stack over the table like some kind of illicit drug.

Betty looks at it, unimpressed. “Am I supposed to know what--”

“-- I gave him the contract.” Donna cuts her off. It seems like she’s been just waiting to say that, because she sits back and just seems to deflate. “Forsythe.” She narrows her eyes. “And I bet you’re just overjoyed. Now your boyfriend’s going to be a published author and you can be the housewife you’ve always dreamed of.” 

Betty has to stop and take another deep breath, because okay, this is not what she thought she’d been getting into. Donna’s in another one of her moods, apparently, and is armed with many wild and vaguely sexist accusations. “Okay, wow,” she starts, “I’m choosing to ignore that, because I still don’t understand what these are for.”

Donna sits up in her seat. “That’s because you have to open them, first,” she says, as if she’s talking to a golden retriever. Betty rolls her eyes and unfolds the papers, and is greeted with a print out of an email. A very bad print out of some screenshots of a lengthy email from Donna to Jughead, expounding in, Betty judges, about a thousand or so words, exactly what the Tracy True books mean to her and how her giving him this writing contract she had, as she put it, rightfully earned, was meant to signify the turning over of a leaf. But in much more words. And Jughead’s reply -- courteous, short, but… willing. He’d accepted her apology. He’d even given his phone number at the bottom, telling Donna to “text him like a normal person next time something comes up.” Betty tries not to look surprised, and skims it further before remarking, “These are emails.” Her voice lilts up at the end, making it sound like a question.

Donna’s eyes widen, and her eyebrows go back up. It makes Betty feel like a child again, petulant and dumb. “Yes,” she says, again like she’s talking to the world’s stupidest puppy, “it’s how people can send messages now.”

“I know that,” Betty says exasperatedly, before putting down the paper. “But… why’d you have to print them out?”

Donna’s eyebrows scrunch. “What?”

“Why’d you print --”

“I heard the question,” Donna snaps, “but I don’t understand it. Or you, for that matter. Shockingly, this is not how I expected this to go. I might have underestimated how pea-brained you can be.”

“It just seems like an extra step,” Betty explains. She doesn’t want Donna to think she’s like, patronizing her, but she’s fighting back a smile anyways. “I don’t get why --”

“So you could see them!” Donna looks incensed, her hands coming up to motion sharply in the air. Betty wonders if she’s trying to stop herself from wringing her neck. She, against her better judgement, laughs, and says, “You could have just forwarded them to me.”

It’s Donna’s turn to take a deep breath. “Well,” she starts sharply, “if I had known you would have been so unreceptive I wouldn’t have even bothered doing _that._ Do you understand what I’m doing here? I’m _trying_. I used colored ink for that, you know." Donna pauses and does an honest to god sniff, nose upturned and all. "And now you’re derailing me, while I’m trying to offer a perfectly good olive branch! Of friendship, Betty Cooper, friendship of which I know you are severely lacking in because all you do is sit in a stuffy office with your boyfriend and hammer away at a typewriter. For god’s sake, a typewriter, it’s like we’re not even in the twenty-first century anymore!” She throws her hands up in the air, exasperated. 

Betty just crosses her arms, amused. “Jughead’s not my boyfriend anymore.”

“He --” Donna slams her mouth shut. “I…” Betty can almost see the gears turning furiously in her head. “You… well then clearly you’re in more dire straits than I thought possible.”

“I’m not in dire straits,” Betty says, “I’m having a perfectly good, great time.” 

Donna fixes her with another eyebrow raise. She does that too often, and it just adds to the air of condescension surrounding her every move. “Because someone having a great time would definitely say exactly that when asked about the time they’re having.”

Betty rolls her eyes, but okay, fine, she hasn’t been particularly social this past month -- her full fledged internship with the FBI doesn’t start until the end of summer, and she’s been counting down the days to her flight by mostly just... sitting in her room. Typing away, yes, but just not at a typewriter. Missing Veronica’s calls from Europe and seeing Archie less and less -- the only person she can remember talking to in the past three days is Jughead, and that’s because they live together. She looks at Donna, who’s waiting for her to trade back a barb, and something about the way she’s looking at Betty makes her feel like she’s being scrutinized, dissected. Donna’s sizing her up, her eyes carefully trained right at Betty’s, maintaining a perfect, practiced eye contact. It gives Betty the shivers. Something must register on Betty’s face, some kind of softening of the lines on her forehead in her distracted observation, because Donna allows herself to fully smirk, and she says, “I think we have the same problem, you and I.”

“Do we.” Betty’s voice is flat.

“We’re quite alike,” Donna continues, as if she hadn’t heard her, “what with our penchant for…”

“Dramatics?” Betty suggests. 

Donna huffs. “For prioritizing our ambitions, let's say. And,” she pauses before continuing, “it seems that we both have a current dearth in companionship.”

It's a more charitable way of saying that you were responsible for the deaths of two teachers. Betty lets it slide. She laughs. “And you want to be friends.”

Donna’s face splits into a slow smile. “See, now we’re on the same page,” she says. Betty wants to laugh at her again, to say fuck off for real this time, but she can’t for some reason. Maybe it’s because she feels like, deep down, she knows Donna, recognizes something in her that twinges something deep in her own gut. Donna’s quiet scheming and loud desperation rings home for Betty in a way she can’t quite figure out. 

“I…” She has to stop herself because, well, she doesn’t know exactly what to say. Donna’s eyes seem to glitter, weirdly, almost tantalizing. It’s like every part of her is leering at Betty. And then she’s reaching out her hand across the table like a mob boss sealing a deal, grinning like a cat encircling it’s prey. Donna’s reaching out her hand for Betty to shake, and it looks smooth and polished, like some kind of Greek statue, and Betty, against all better judgement, wants to grab it, wants to pull it close and examine her palm lines and her fingerprints and the short, plain nails, grimy underneath the bed -- she doesn’t, though, because touching Donna like that is dangerous. _Donna_ is dangerous, she reminds herself.

“Donna,” Betty says, “why’d you come?”

Donna’s smile drops off her face, and her hand snaps back to her side. “You read the email. I printed it out for you. Specifically.”

“A new leaf,” Betty muses. “Yeah, I got that. But Donna, we’re gonna need like, a whole new tree.”

Donna’s eyes narrow, and then she’s sliding out of the booth and standing up, brushing her hands down to smooth out her spotless black button up. She studies Betty for a moment, huffs out a laugh, and then leans forward and taps the pieces of paper with a finger. “Read Forsythe’s email again. You really ought to take some lessons in basic courtesy from him.” Her face splits into another smile, but it’s not as mean as it was before. “And when you’ve done that -- well, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

And then she turns on her heel and flounces away. Betty stares after her, feeling off balance even though she’s sitting down. She puts her head in her hands for a second and lets out a deep sigh, and when she lifts it back up, she makes eye contact with Pop Tate behind the counter, who raises his eyebrows. It’s all Betty can do to not roll her eyes in the direction of Donna’s retreating form through the large window beside her head.

She looks down at the papers in front of her. She picks them up, gives them a quick once-over again, goes to fold them up -- and then something catches her eye. Printed in blue ink, on the back of the second printer page, a phone number is written out in neat, slanted handwriting. Beside it, a note. _Betty_ , it reads. _Don’t be a stranger (anymore)._

And something about it -- the parentheticals, maybe -- makes something in Betty’s chest flare, warm and bubbling. She takes a breath, feels the weight in her lungs lift up before settling back down, down in the pit of her stomach, and fights back a stupid smile. Of course Donna would expect a fight and place all her bets on her getting the last word, even if it meant having to sacrifice… What, her dignity? Her pride? It’s just a stupid phone number. Betty doesn’t have to call it. She doesn’t even have to act like she’s seen it. But she will, she knows she will, and beyond that, somewhere inside her, she knows that Donna knows this, and is expecting her call. They might not understand each other, but they know each other. They’re the closest strangers two people could be.

\---

“I can’t help but feel bad for her,” Jughead is saying, and Betty’s looking at him as he says it, but she’s not paying attention. She’s watching the corners of his mouth instead, watches them twitch. He’s holding back his laughter -- at her? At the entire situation? Betty’s not sure.

“God, Jug, what did she even say to you?” Betty crosses one leg over the other. “I haven’t heard one convincing thing leave her mouth.”

This time, he doesn’t hold back a short laugh. “You have the emails, don’t you?”

Betty scoffs. “I skimmed them.”

“You missed out on some scintillating prose,” Jughead deadpans. Betty puts her face in her hands. “You sound like her,” she says. “Why do you sound like her?”

Jughead’s mouth twists to one side. “I might not have mentioned how incessant a texter she is.” Betty groans. Jug puts his hands up in a pacifying gesture. “Look, she helped me in some ways, in the _battle_ with Brett.” They way he says “battle” should have been punctuated with air quotes. “She’s not so bad to talk to,” Jughead continues. “She’s just like, completely fucking inscrutable.”

“Nothing she’s ever done has been even the tiniest bit scrutable.”

“I mean,” Jughead says, and he chews on his lip for a moment before apparently deciding to just say it already, “Betty, you might think I’m being crazy here, but I genuinely feel sorry for her. And I think that what she did made sense to her, in some twisted way.” He grimaces. “And like, not saying that she had no other options, but when you’ve only ever been told one way to do things…” He trails off. “It just… makes sense to me. In a twisted sort of way.”

Betty rolls her eyes, turns away, and sinks deeper into the sofa. “Fitting that the only thing that makes sense about Donna Sweett is the fact that she was basically trained for murder from birth.” Betty looks over at Jughead. “She’s got like, a killing instinct. A proclivity towards murderous machinations, if you want to get fancy.”

Jughead sets his mouth in a straight line, not unsimilar to Donna just a few hours ago at the diner. “No one has a killing instinct,” he says, like she’s trying his patience a little bit. “Not even serial killers.”

Betty doesn’t think this is true. In fact, she feels like she should know this isn’t true, given… well, everything. She thinks about her father and ignores the acrid taste filling her mouth. Judging from his face, she knows Jug knows that he’s said something wrong, touched on the subject they both skirted around for the years of their relationship. He’s frowning and staring at Betty, television forgotten even though the lights from the monitor dance across the sides of his face in the dim room, and Betty focuses on those, ghosting over his skin, because it’s easier to think about than your father’s grave. Your father’s grave, littered with broken beer bottles and cigarette butts, the grass around the headstone smelling like piss and death. Fuck. She turns away from Jughead and looks back at the screen, but the light hurts her eyes. 

She feels wrong in her body, somehow. Wrong in the sense that she knows she’s supposed to fit neatly into herself, slot herself back into place and begin to move again, to be some kind of person again, but she can’t -- she’s frozen up inside, a well of panic coursing through her as she thinks about the sound of the gun cocking, how loud it rang out against the trees, how silent everything was after her dad slumped to the ground, blood spilling out onto the dirt. It’s not that she’s still sad, or even angry at him for what he did. Not anymore. No, she’s angry that he knew how fucked up he was and still decided to make her, still decided to bring her into this world only to have her take something out of it. The blood. The blood on the lawn. The wailing. Someone is screaming close to her eardrum. She thinks it might be her own cries. He made her in his own image, and try as she might, she can’t ever think of a time where she can look at herself and not loathe the parts of him she sees. 

“Not when they’re born, sure,” she manages, because Jughead is still looking at her, and his eyes are so patient, because he’s always been so patient. And that’s what Betty loved about him, right? Except it’s still there, and her love isn’t. She honestly can’t be sure if it ever existed to begin with. “She grew up into it.”

He knows. He understands. She doesn’t have to say anything. It’s a small gift. 

Jughead just sighs. “We all grew up into things. We have time to leave them behind.” He bites his lip, and then says, “We’re still kids, Betty.”

Betty shakes her head. “It doesn’t feel like it.” 

Jughead doesn’t have to ask if Betty will call Donna. They both know the answer. They both pretend not to know. 

The problem, Betty thinks, long after Jughead has dropped the topic, is that she doesn’t exactly know what her problem with the entire idea is. People, she knows, can change. It’s just that being in Donna’s presence makes her feel watched. Dissected, prodded, like she’s excoriating layers of Betty’s skin with only her mind. There’s always something private behind her eyes, something so deeply wounded and intense and almost desperate that it makes Betty feel like she’s looking at something unbearable. Being around Donna makes her skin crawl, because she recognizes it, the hunger -- there is always something just out of her grasp. 

The pathetic thing, she thinks as she lays in bed, staring at her phone screen, is that a part of her thinks Donna can help her reach it somehow, even if she doesn’t know exactly what it is. But it’s pushing at her gut, this idea swirling around in her brain -- that they have the same problem, somehow. And maybe it has the same solution. 

Almost unconsciously, she types the number into her phone. She glances around, because it feels like the air in the room got tighter somehow, less breathable and smooth, like everything is tensed and coiled up and waiting. Everything seems to hold its breath. 

Betty takes a deep breath, taps her phone screen one last time before the plunge, and calls her.

Donna picks up on the first ring.

\--- 

Betty’s not convinced by her act, but she keeps calling Donna anyway, putting her on speakerphone and letting her fill the warm room with chatter. It’s a way, Betty convinces herself, to keep Donna at arm’s length, to keep their friendship confined to a time and a space where they’re both doing nothing but being in each other’s phone presence. Jughead, on the other hand, seems to double his efforts in making their summer as filled to the brim with annoying prep school brunettes as possible, after their conversation on the couch. So when Donna’s there as she opens the front door, nestled on the sofa and keeping herself about a foot away from Jughead, she’s not even surprised. Betty just sighs, slips off her shoes, and slings her backpack down on the ground by the couch. “Do I even want to ask?” She sits down on the floor, right beneath Donna, crossing her legs carefully. She watches Jughead grimace in the TV reflection, which is playing an episode of Gossip Girl. On screen, Blaire and Serena reunite in the rain, each of them fighting back tears. 

“Well, Forsythe texted _me_ ,” Donna says, a little like she’s won some kind of prize at a carnival, “and since he loves my company so much, I negotiated that I would only step foot in the Cooper residence if I got to choose the activity.”

Jughead’s mouth is pressed into a thin line. “The activity is Gossip Girl,” he tells Betty. 

“I’ve noticed,” Betty replies. 

“This is the best episode of television, barring some from Glee,” Donna announces, picking at her nails. Betty watches her pull off a piece of skin around her nail bed and she says, “Don’t do that,” almost without thinking.

Donna stills. “Excuse me?” 

Jughead looks like he wants to put his head in his hands. 

Betty puts her hands up in front of her chest, palms facing outwards. “Jeez, Donna, I meant your nails,” she says. “You’ll be bleeding by the time the episode is over.”

“She’s not fucking around,” Jughead says. “I used to bite my nails. Betty made me stop.’

Donna looks affronted. “As she should have. That’s unsanitary.”

Betty looks at her. “Thank you!” She meets her eyes without realizing and watches as Donna’s eyes widen, almost unnoticeably. Her face goes through a number of twitches as she tries to fight back a smile. Betty watches her, feeling strangely satisfied. 

They watch more Gossip Girl. Then they watch an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. And then Betty stands up and so does Jughead and Donna follows, and all of a sudden they’re all in her room. 

Donna enters last, looking around, her eyes wide, a curious little smile tracing her lips. She sits primly on the bed, while Jughead takes the windowsill and pulls out his phone. Donna leans forward and places her head in her hands carefully, resting her elbows on her knees, chin cupped by her palms. Her eyes rotate slowly around the room, taking in all of Betty’s space -- the clothes in piles on the floor, the papers crowding every inch of her desk, the pink printed walls. God, this is embarrassing -- she hasn’t redecorated since she was in middle school, and the walls are cotton-candy sweet and leering at her. She should have some cooler posters up. Some cool movie that Donna’s never even heard of, because it’s too obscure, one that Donna could point at and ask her to tell her about it. And Betty just… would. And it would be so fucking simple, to just talk like the past year hadn’t happened. 

Donna’s lips curl up at the ends, and it looks like a wound. “This is _your_ room, right?” she asks, her eyes narrowing, but it’s playful and not malicious. Okay, maybe a little bit malicious. “Not your sister’s nursery?”

“Fuck off or leave,” Betty deadpans, and Donna’s lips curl, like Betty’s just proved her point, because, well, she kind of has. 

“Don’t I get any other options?” she asks, and she literally pouts, her lower lip pushing out past the top, and it’s such a surprise, a face Betty’s never seen on her before, that she has to look away. It’s too much to look directly at, makes her chest feel too tight, sparks shooting off underneath her skin. 

“Sure,” Betty replies, “but you’ve got to earn them.” Donna breaks into another grin. She smiles a lot more than Betty would expect. Sometimes, Betty can hear the curve of her lips through the tinny phone speaker, and it makes her want to start smiling, too. She guesses it’s just some kind of weird instinct. People give off energy, and Betty’s been trying her whole life to meet that energy in kind. Because it feels expected, but also, it’s just polite. There’s no politeness in Donna -- she moves and watches others move with her, and Betty can’t help but feel the pull, the way she commands a room. Donna’s grinning at her, and Betty realizes that she did that, she made that happen. There was an expectation of banter, of unfeeling back and forth, but somehow, Donna’s smile smashed through all of the preconceptions Betty has in her head for how this is supposed to go. Her smiles don’t ever come from happiness -- this one comes from a kind of sick delight, delight that Betty’s biting back, digging her claws into Donna’s skin. She always does this. It should be normal. It shouldn’t feel so big. But right now, watching Donna’s face, Betty can’t help but feel like she’s won something, too. 

\---

“Cooper,” Donna’s voice is cheery when she picks up the phone. “Don’t you have anyone else to talk to?” Her voice is fond.

“You’re just the one who picks up the fastest,” Betty replies. She’s propped up against her headboard, a journal in her lap. She drags the pen thoughtlessly over the page. 

Donna inhales a quiet laugh. “I figure that coming into these conversations with a certain amount of haste tends to make them shorter. Which, as you know, is always the goal."

“How's that working out for you?” On the page, Betty begins to draw a single line, spiraling out from the center. 

Donna huffs. “Not well, considering you're still talking."

“Veronica’s in Europe. She’s sleeping right now.”

“You two talk?” Donna sounds shocked. “I thought it was a bitter breakup situation.”

“I’m lost.” Truly, truly lost. “Veronica and I were never --”

“Oh, Betty,” Donna sighs. “You really are stupider than you look. It’s the classic dichotomy of school smart and street smart, and, well, you’re just best suited for your books.”

Betty rolls her eyes, then realizes Donna can’t see her. “I’m rolling my eyes at you,” Betty tells her. 

“I'm wounded.”

“Donna.” Betty stops drawing. “Seriously, where did you get the idea that Veronica and I -- I mean, come on, you knew I was dating Jughead --”

“Let’s just say that the homoerotic tension crackled loud enough for us to hear over at Stonewall. Betty, come on. You two weren’t fighting over some dumb boys, were you?" Betty can practically see Donna's forehead wrinkle on the other side of the line. "That’s just distasteful.”

Betty is very pointedly not looking at her phone as Donna speaks. She looks down again at her paper, deep circles spreading out to the edges, hundreds of lines at this point. She digs her pen harder into the page and keeps going over the lines. She thinks for a while, and then says, “Well, I mean, I think I _was_ jealous of her.”

Donna hums. “Of what?”

“She was… she was just, like, the most girl that a girl could be. Does that make --”

“Yes,” says Donna.

“And I was always next to her, and I was always just taking cues from her about the way I should be, and it was just so easy for her to…” Betty trails off, because she can’t exactly verbalize what she’s thinking. It was just that Veronica radiated this feminine beauty, like Audrey Hepburn or something, pearls and all, and Betty always felt like she was doing something wrong that Veronica wasn’t. It was just so easy, Betty thinks, for Veronica to be a girl. She says as much to Donna, who is silent for a long time. Then, she laughs. It crackles and distorts over the phone, and it makes Betty jump. “Betty,” she says, “don’t take this too much to heart, but I think a therapist would have an absolute field day with you.”

Betty is silent.

“Betty?" Donna asks, and when Betty still doesn't answer, a deep sigh issues from the phone. "God," Donna says, sounding muffled, "you've gone and done exactly what I said not to do. Look, Cooper, it's --"

Betty cuts her off. “-- Does therapy help you, like, at all?”

Donna pauses. “What?”

“I mean,” Betty explains quickly, “I mean, like, okay, this is going to sound bad, but I faked having a therapist once and just, um, I don’t know how to make this sound good, but self medicated?” 

Donna is silent on the other end of the line. Betty keeps talking. “And so, I mean, I wondered if it was really worth it to even go to like, a real one, because like at the time my mom found out she was like, kind of being controlled by an evil organ harvesting cult? So I didn’t really want to do anything she wanted me to do.” 

Donna is still quiet.

“Okay,” Betty continues, “I know how that sounds and like, any person who has experienced that should, ideally, go to therapy and receive help and all that, but I mean, like, I don’t know if it’s worth it. In some capacity. Like, I’m gonna grow up and distance myself from this stuff. That’s gonna happen whether I like, talk about it or not.” Even as she says it, she knows how it must sound.

On the phone, Donna takes a deep, audible breath. “Betty,” she starts, “it is absolutely imperative that you talk about things.”

Betty presses her lips together. 

“It kills a person from the inside out to keep all of their, as you put it, _stuff_ inside,” Donna continues. “But I understand the compulsion. No one worries about you. Or at least, knows enough to worry loudly enough, where you can hear it. But we have to recognize this urge as one we can’t give in to.”

“Okay, but I know this,” Betty insists. “I know this and I know that it’s what I’m doing and I understand the bad behavior towards myself is bad behavior, but I just…”

She doesn’t know what to say. That she can’t bring herself to care enough that it’s bad? That the tendency towards destruction is in her too deep, in her very DNA? 

“There’s all this stuff that comes with it,” she ends up settling for. “I mean, the word, ‘treatment.’ I don’t want to do some dumb mental exercises to spot negative thoughts. I know that they’re negative. But I don’t know what to do with them and I doubt that I’d even take any advice a therapist gives me.” 

“Therapists are nice,” Donna says, a little softer, “but sometimes, it’s really hard to listen to them.”

“So, you think it’s worthwhile? It like… helps?”

“In a sense,” Donna replies. Betty can tell she has a small smile on her lips, can hear it in the way she draws out the ends of her words, breathy and light. She could almost close her eyes and picture that smile right in front of her -- soft, calming, a shelter from the elements. She doesn’t, though, because there’s this look she knows she gets on her face when she thinks about it, and it seems too much to face in her room alone. So she just keeps quiet and listens to Donna, her journal forgotten beside her. “Therapy isn’t -- well, okay, it’s about recovery, in a sense,” Donna is saying, “but it’s also a place where someone listens to me. And I just get to talk about things that affect me. Without judgement. Because there’s no right or wrong way to be affected by those things.” She pauses, and then speaks again, and her voice is more urgent when she says,“There is no expectation of you, Betty. You know that, don’t you?”

Betty laughs. “It’s easy to say there isn’t. It’s harder to believe it.”

Donna huffs. “Well, get it through your skull, Cooper, you deserve things inherently.”

They’re both silent for a moment. Then Betty says, mostly to break the silence, but also because she feels off kilter again, “Unfortunately, my skull is too thick to penetrate.”

“I thought that this might be an issue,” Donna replies. “Luckily, I came prepared with the ice pick.”

Betty shudders. “A lobotomy would be awfully nice,” she muses, and Donna’s noise of indignation is so loud that Betty laughs for the first time that day. 

\---

They’re walking through the forest together, Betty treading a few feet behind Donna in sensible hiking boots, Donna in a large black suede coat and shiny loafers, quietly stewing a few feet in front of her.

“I’m just saying,” Betty is calling to her, catching up, “that you’re being overdramatic.”

“You are an idiot,” Donna says over her shoulder, and steps up the pace.

“For suggesting something logical?” Betty asks.

Donna whirls around and throws up her hands in frustration. “Yes!” She pauses. “I mean, no, because nothing logical was said. You’ve been completely illogical ever since we’ve met and I doubt that this condition will ever go away.”

“Oh,” Betty laughs, “so I shouldn’t assume that there was _some_ part of you that hated me for being with Jughead? Even just a little -- ”

“-- Foolishness. Textbook definition.”

“You were so obsessed with us,” Betty goes on, “it all seemed so strange, how much you and Bret just, like, zeroed in and completely tormented him.”

“Oh my god, I don’t want to have this conversation,” Donna says, and goes to turn around again, but Betty doesn’t move. “Come _on_ ,” Donna says emphatically, but Betty just shakes her head. “I can’t believe that you won’t just own up to whatever it was that possessed you to make our lives hell for the past year. Seriously, Donna.”

“I thought,” Donna says carefully, her body still not angled towards Betty, “that we agreed to put this all behind us. You know why I did it. I told you why. I gave the stupid contract to your boyfriend.”

“It’s been tentatively forgiven,” Betty replies, crossing her arms over her chest. “But not forgotten. And if you can’t look at what you’ve done square in the face, then I’m just gonna go home, because I don’t really want to deal with this.”

And then Donna turns around slowly, the wind whipping around them, swirling the pines and the leaves up into the air and making everything already more dramatic than it has to be. It’s perfect for Donna, for all her grandeur and theatrics. “You don’t have to keep calling if you don’t actually believe that I’m trying to change,” Donna snaps, but her eyes are wide and not narrow and Betty can tell that she doesn’t actually want her to walk away. 

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Betty sucks her top lip between her teeth. “There was obviously something motivating you to target us, specifically, and you won’t tell me what it is.”

“Because… it’s… well, with present company, it’s just not something that needs to be addressed!” Donna’s anger has faded, and her eyes have only gone wider, staring down the barrel of a gun wide, and Betty’s so frustrated, that she’s missing something vital that Donna doesn’t want to tell her. 

“With _present company_?” Betty repeats, and Donna’s nose scrunches up. “It’s only us out here, Donna --”

“I don’t know,” Donna seethes, “if you’re being deliberately obtuse to mock me, or if you are really this dull, and I’m not sure which one is worse for me.”

“For _you_? Donna, I --”

Donna cuts her off. “It wasn’t you I was jealous of.” It bursts from her mouth with a few flecks of spit, and she looks almost shocked when she says it. She freezes, and stares at Betty, who is acutely aware of her breathing, the rise and fall of her chest, how it stutters when she exhales. The gears whir in her brain. 

Donna takes a step backward, swallows, and says, almost in a rush, “My god, Cooper, you’re not clutching your pearls _now_ , are you? I don’t know how big of a room you think you have to judge from, but it doesn’t have the highest ceilings, you know --”

It still feels the machinery in her brain is going too fast. Almost haywire. And the loose screws aren’t helping. This is Donna, she reminds herself. If there was a list of people she shouldn’t make out with, Donna would be bolded, circled, and written in red all the way at the top. Because -- because of things! And circumstances. And situations. And --

And Donna’s still talking.

“It was a crush, Cooper, not a marriage pursuit, and besides, with Forsythe in the way, nothing could have ever happened --”

“-- But,” Betty cuts her off, drawing her eyebrows together. She’s working on a theory, here, she’s putting together the pieces -- Donna, she thinks, for all her sputtering and usage of the past tense, is transparent, right now, and Betty can see, on her face, traces of… of what, longing? She’s not in a Victorian novel, but she feels examined by Donna, feels hot just by the way Donna’s gazing at her, like -- well, like Betty is hers, like she caught a glimpse of Betty’s ankles and felt her pulse and wiped sweat off her brow with a handkerchief. She looks at Betty like she should just be _looked_ at. The thought makes her want to spin around a few times just to fully process it. “But… now he’s… _not_ in the way.”

And Donna’s jaw drops open. “ _Betty_.” She sounds indignant. 

“I’m just saying,” Betty replies, and then she watches Donna’s face go red at the weight of her implication, and watches Donna huff and turn around and start stomping away, her cheeks squished up and flushed, and she feels, out of many, many things, a great big rush of satisfaction. 

She waits a few seconds and then starts trailing behind her again, trying and failing to fight the smile that’s slowly spreading across her face.

\---

**_Wish I Had Bigger Hands, Donna Sweett_ **

**_July 12th, 2020_ **

_I'll admit it -- I'm too mean for love. It's pathetic..._

_I got jealous of the shape of her nails and_ _the way her hands moved_

_through the water. She caresses it, cups it_

_in her hands and holds it like a newborn, cradles it like it's something she'll kiss._

_She loves to kiss things -- not with her lips, because_

_it's all in the eyelashes with girls, the flutter and whatnot..._

_Tracing a line across the horizon, across my brow line, my collarbone._

_The line is thin. The line is so light and so purple it's bursting lavender transparency._

_I grew up viscous blue and I'm kind of still angry about that..._

_I guess it's just that I want bigger hands. To hold onto more things._

_I don't need them, exactly. I just want them touching me._

_Just... just the feeling of something on my skin. Something opposable thumbed and_

_thick collared and something candle soft and bendy. I want to sink into you._

_Think fruit pulp. Think pollen sneezes. Think about what we deserve._

\---

In the new dream, the lights are all different colors than they would be on Earth, flashing and pulsing like a vein, and your dad dies in a way you can understand. You see him, at the edge of large forests, the sun shining electric blue, and then you’re running towards him. And he’s running towards you, and you’re suddenly wearing your best dress and heels but you get to him anyway. You’re out of breath. And he kisses you on the forehead and tells you that you look pretty, and to be back before midnight, and that he loves you. And he’s staring at you with those eyes. They harden into glass, like the ice, like the pool water. And suddenly you’re very, very afraid. He grabs your arm and your dress tears but you lunge for the pistol anyways. You do everything right. In the dream, you do everything exactly the way you should.

\---

Betty wakes with the gunshot echoing in her ears, ringing out like a church bell. She blinks once, twice, and swipes a hand across her brow, feeling it come away damp. Shit. She ends up walking the house to calm her nerves, ambling from room to room as the quiet spreads out in front of her like a red carpet, rolled out just for her. She can’t remember when she stopped thinking of it as her parent’s house and started thinking about it as Jughead’s, but there’s still traces of her dad everywhere -- the scratch on the posts by the stairs where he had dragged Betty’s children’s easel along the paint as he moved it from room to room, the TV mounted on the wall that he found on the side of the road and brought home to fix up, even the matching, cherry paint he had picked for the front door and the mailbox that Betty stares at now and tries not to think about the color of her dad’s blood on the trees, on the grass, on her face, seeping into the dirt. 

Betty doesn’t like to think about these things often, about what makes a home, because, well, it’s all too much to think about. The sharpie on her walls, hidden by her bed, the sticky notes on her bulletin board, the worn denim jacket draped across the back of her desk chair -- those are all pieces of her, all things she’ll leave behind someday. She thinks, wildly for a moment, about driving up to Canada and leaving this life behind forever, and what people would think about as they walked through her room to collect her things. The police had done that for her father, had come and excavated his and her mother’s room, examining the walls and the dents in the carpet where the bed posts had been for so long, trying to make sense of the man through the things he’d left behind. Betty remembers kneeling on the lawn, tears tracking down her face, and her father’s figure, already walking in through the front of that red, red door. She remembers the cat, writhing on the lawn. The bricks around the flowers before her, poking through the grass like pulled teeth. She lifts the rock. The cat is trembling. Something is there, in its eyes. Something like recognition.

\---

Donna finds her in the graveyard, knelt before his headstone, fingers tracing the spray paint. It’s fucked up, she thinks, how spray paint sticks, how it melds to the surface, becomes it all together. No matter what she uses, she can’t get it to just come off. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe it’s the least her dad deserves -- for shame to follow him everywhere he goes. Sometimes things just shouldn’t be forgotten. 

“Betty,” Donna says from behind her, and Betty hears her but doesn’t turn around. Her voice is calm, deceptively calm, and Betty knows she’s forcing her tone to be peaceful and comforting. “Are you okay?”

And maybe it’s because she had been gearing up for a fight, gearing up for Donna to tell her to get the fuck up and stop acting hysterical, but Betty just crumples. She collapses into the dirt, her hands landing right next to a broken beer bottle. Donna is immediately there, crouched by her side. “Careful,” she says simply, and Betty just slumps further, lets her hands support her more. They both stare straight ahead at her dad’s grave. 

“Donna,” Betty says. “Do you…”

“Betty, it’s okay,” Donna says. “We don’t have to talk.” 

Betty shakes her head and continues. “Do you think… do you think he liked it?” Donna doesn’t reply. Betty goes on. “Liked, like… killing people. Do you think he felt, like, not happy… but… this weird sort of joy? Like, there must be a sick sort of thrill. There’s a fascination, you know, and it’s like, I would never seek out the thrill, but there’s just this moment, the act of dying itself, where you see it in the eyes when it -- when it happens, where you know that they know -- well, whoever they are, you know?” She pauses. “I’ve watched it happen so many times. That hope of life that always goes on behind the eyes, the assuredness of survival we have, it just leaves. And when that happens, and a person starts to die, and you’re sitting with them, and it’s just like, you’re both waiting for their death. And you feel terrible but you’re not just waiting, you’re wishing.”

“Betty.” Donna is trembling. She has a hand over her mouth. “What did he -- what did you do?”

And Betty tells her. She tells her everything, until she can’t say anything else, still staring at the shards of glass next to her shoe. Donna is silent for a moment, clasping and unclasping her pale hands in front of her, rubbing her thumb up against her protruding knuckles. “You father sounds,” she starts, “like an asshole.” 

Betty is quiet for a moment, hears only the blood rushing in her ears, before she turns her head slowly, around to face her, and says, “You need to shut the fuck up.”

But Donna only reaches out, and puts a hand on her shoulder. “Betty,” she says plainly, taking a step forward, crowding Betty right up against the tombstone, her gaze pinning her to the spot. “I don’t think it’s me you’re mad at.”

Her anger drains out of her like someone punctured the bag it was being held in, and all she’s left with is the grave, and the wind in the trees, and fucking Donna, still crouched right there, almost against her chest, her lips pressed into a thin line as she searches Betty’s face with her large blue eyes. She’s so… there, so present, and Betty gets suddenly dizzy with the fact that she’s never been this close to someone’s face and looked them directly in the eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul, her brain supplies unhelpfully, and right, perfect, she’s descended into cliches about Donna’s eyes. As if this couldn’t get any worse. She’s frozen in this realization, embarrassed and hot all over, and she can feel Donna’s breath misting from her mouth, blowing across Betty’s cupid’s bow, and Jesus Christ, she wishes that it wasn’t summer right now, that she didn’t have beads of unattractive sweat rolling down the sides of her face. She can feel her heart hammering against her ribcage, slamming into the bone, almost hard enough to leave a bruise. She looks up, all the way up, to the few beads of sweat glimmering on Donna’s dark hairline, and her stomach drops down to the floor. Donna’s sweating, too. Donna’s… Donna’s nervous. 

“Tell me more about myself,” she wants to say, but then she watches as Donna’s eyes very slowly focus on the bottom half of her face, and she realizes, without much fanfare, that Donna is, pointedly or not, staring at her lips. 

And the really messed up thing is that she wants her to kiss her, wants her to just do it already, wants and has wanted it so badly that she’d kiss her anywhere, even, apparently, in front of her dad’s gravestone. She closes her eyes and feels stupid, feels like the worst person to have ever lived, basically. She feels something wet against her cheek, and realizes that she’s crying. “Betty,” Donna says again, and her eyes are wide. Her face has backed away. “Betty, you’re...” Her eyes widen more, and Betty didn’t know how that was possible. They’re so deep, so openly blue. 

Donna’s repeating her name, over and over again, and it’s weird to say, but she’s holding her now, too, genuinely holding her, in a way that Betty has never really been touched before, and maybe this newness is why she gives in, leans onto Donna’s shoulder and lets herself shake. She feels the rise and fall of Donna’s chest and tries, with some success, to sync her breathing up with Donna’s. It’s a long time before she speaks. 

“It’s good that he’s dead,” she whispers when she finally can say something without her voice trembling, “but sometimes I miss him so badly I can’t stand it.”

“I know,” Donna says, and it’s the last thing Betty expected her to say. 

They stare at the graffiti on the headstone, declaring Hal Cooper’s fate. Then, Betty turns to Donna.

“I used to feel like he was in my house,” she says, “after he left. I used to think his ghost was there, floating in the halls. I used to think the wind outside was him trying to talk to me. Trying to -- I don’t know, apologize, or explain himself, or something. And I always listened, and I always strained to try and decipher anything that it could tell me. I figured -- I don’t know. I figured he owed me that much.”

Donna nods, but is quiet. 

“I was definitely imagining it,” Betty goes on. “And I freaked myself out for no reason. And after I realized that he wasn’t in the house, wasn’t even, like, _alive_ anymore, I just started coming here, to see if he was maybe here. But he’s not. So I kept looking. I’ve searched everywhere in this town, anywhere he might have had a connection with. But he’s nowhere to be found. And I don’t think… I don’t think I’ll ever find him again.”

“I’m sorry,” Donna says. “I’m so sorry, Betty.”

They’re silent for a while, and then Donna says, “We can leave if seeing this upsets you.” She gestures to the spray paint.

Betty manages a weak smile. “Where would I go?”

Donna bites her lip for a second, before saying quickly, “My house is available.”

Betty looks at her. “Your house.”

Donna’s cheeks tint. “Only if that sounds alright to you,” she says. “Otherwise, we can stay here for as long as you want.”

Betty thinks about it for a second, and then nods. She doesn’t want to stay here, that’s for sure. He’s not here. At least, his spirit isn’t, because it might not even exist in the first place. Betty doesn’t want to decide right now.

“No,” she says, “I’m ready to go now.” She takes Donna’s hand as she helps Betty to her feet, and the touch lingers, even after their hands aren’t connected anymore, all the way back to the car.

Donna’s house is huge in a way Betty had thought she was prepared for, but it still throws her off-guard. It’s looming and made of stone, in a way newer houses just aren’t anymore, and Betty stares up at it for a second before turning to Donna and saying, “I feel like a mistress you took back to your private estates.”

Donna goes pink. “Just follow me,” she grumbles, and starts going inside. “Take me, Donna,” Betty says, following after her. “Ravish me.’ Donna’s hands go into fists at her sides, and she wheels around on her once they’re in her room. Betty doesn’t have time to look around after she’s closed the door before Donna’s backing her up into it. 

“You’re such a tease, Betty Cooper,” she says, and it would almost sound miserable if she wasn’t staring at Betty’s lips again. 

“Tell me if this is too weird,” Donna whispers intently, and then she’s leaning forward, her hand coming up to cup Betty’s cheek, and Betty can feel herself shaking. Donna’s hand is steady on her cheek, though, and she wants to give up the ghost, to just melt into Donna’s palm and close the distance. She can feel all the hairs on her body stand on end, she can feel the goosebumps rising, and Donna’s taking her sweet goddamn time right now, but does it matter? 

Donna, gently and carefully, leans in, brushes her thumb against Betty’s jaw, and Betty goes still, her entire body tensing up. Donna’s hand stays on her cheek, gentle, and then slips to her neck, tissue-soft. Donna leans forward, her eyes half closing, and Betty’s closing her eyes too and throwing up caution like it’s confetti and leaning into Donna’s touch. Donna’s breath is hot against her face. She leans forward all the way, and Betty holds her breath, and Donna moves in and slowly, softly, pecks her lightly on the cheek. And Betty wants to scream and cry again and maybe break something, because, well, what the fuck?

“What the fuck?” she repeats, so loudly that Donna flinches back, her cheeks immediately turning a bright red. “I’m sorry,” she scrambles, her eyes roaming all around Betty’s face, flitting away and back, flitting down to her lips. Her throat. “I just had to.”

Betty’s lips part in shock, because, well, is she fucking kidding? 

“You’re an idiot, Donna Sweett,” she manages, and Donna’s hand slips from her neck, but Betty grabs it fiercely and holds it steady, up in the air between them. “The absolute least you could do,” she seethes, “is kiss me on the goddamn mouth,” and it takes a second for her words to register to Donna, but when they do, Betty sees it flicker across her whole face before Donna’s grinning, this time out of pure happiness, and then they’re both surging forward quickly, meeting in the middle in an awkward mash of lips and teeth. They’re kissing, and then pulling apart, and Donna’s eyes are bright, so bright Betty feels like she might need to squint, because they’re trained directly on her like a camera flash, like a searchlight, like a -- and then she doesn’t have time to finish that thought because Donna huffs out a laugh and leans back in, and Betty’s mind sinks into the contact. It becomes a black hole. It surrounds them. It swallows them. It's the largest and smallest thing to have ever happened. It is a mercy. 

\---

**Date: 9/13/2020**

**Email from:** [ **dsweett002@gmail.com** ](mailto:dsweett002@gmail.com)

**To:** [ **betty.cooper@gmail.com** ](mailto:betty.cooper@gmail.com)

**Subject: none**

**_The Donner Party watches me eat a tangerine in quiet envy_ ** **, Donna Sweett**

**_September 10th, 2020_ **

_But there are just some things the living get to have for themselves_

_and the jealous mold made it taste sweeter_

_than it ever had before and I dug in hungrily with all my teeth_

_and I ripped out the seeds like lungs and livers_

_In this world, there is a museum of oceans and there is a museum of light_

_They’re shaped like the human heart because they’re so close together_

_but even though they’re next to each other they aren’t the same thing_

_We’re in a car_ _in their shared parking lot and I’m asking you to turn off the engine_

_and come in with me and you say yes and it’s beautiful but it’s also all glass_

_and at the tempered lake_ _and the still fireplace I tell you to kill me first_

_but that’s not what I really want to say I just mean that_

_I demand an open casket and tulips and for everyone to use hanker chiefs again_

_I want them to know I went down without a fight and I want them to know why_

_I can’t stop thinking about being killed and ca_ _n’t stop watching your fingers dig into meat and_

_can’t stop envying that charred flesh you’re ripping apart_

_You’re getting animal crusted under your fingernails but s_ _omehow I don’t care about the mess_

 _Okay, okay, so maybe it’s just that I’m more_ _focused on other things right now_

 _The flash of your molars all carnal and the_ _smell of squelching meat and you l_ _i_ _cking your fingernails_

_I don’t trust myself to focus on your jaw right now, your mouth right now_

_What I actually wanted to say to you was that I want you to kill this thing inside of me_

_that isn’t me but is you and you and your flesh and your bones but I’m too busy being_

_burned alive and you’re too busy picking at the cut and saying it looks like a mouth._

_Ignore me. Ignore my bones. Just keep staring at the blood and salivating._

_Skin hungry and skin aching and skin open and skin raw._

\---

There will be a night where he does not come in a dream, and you will wake up the next morning not knowing if that’s a good thing or not. Then you have the same dream, every night, for a week. You’re wearing your party dress again, but there’s no blood on it. You’re standing at the edge of the world, and she’s standing with you, right beside you, and you can feel the warmth of her arm. And you turn to her, and there it is again. The recognition in her eyes. There is no blame. And then she finally, finally reaches out for you, only for you, surrounding you, embracing you, carrying you through the wind. The world, beneath you, is constantly deforming and reforming, stretching out its aches and pains. You see her there, in the folds of life. You look at each other. You look away. You know that when you look back, she’ll still be there. With you, always aching, always cracking your back. You want to live here. And it doesn’t feel wrong to say anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfiction I've posted since my 2014 wattpad days. This isn't the most time I've put into a fanfiction before, but some of the stuff in here (mostly parts of the poems) have been sitting in google docs since like, 2018, which is a little weird to think about. Anyways, viva la Riverdale! I hope we get more Donna in season 5.
> 
> Title is from an essay by Anne Carson from Men in the Off Hours -- "“As members of human society, perhaps the most difficult task we face daily is that of touching one another—whether the touch is physical, moral, emotional or imaginary. Contact is crisis. As the anthropologists say, “Every touch is a modified blow.”
> 
> I'm a little hesitant to share so much of my writing in this, especially with the poems "Donna" writes. Everything in here is alwayts a work in progress and it feels strange to share them when I don't consider them done but I don't think it would be the same without them, so I decided to leave them in and just... brace myself?
> 
> Find me on tumblr at documentarynow


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